National media: Pete Carroll used philosophy, culture to make Seattle Seahawks a winner

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When Pete Carroll was hired as the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks prior to the 2010 season, plenty of people expected him to fail. After all, hadn’t his nine-year run at USC proven that he was more suited to the college game after his 23-31 record in four years with the NFL’s Jets and Patriots?

But Carroll has proved the doubters wrong in four seasons in Seattle, compiling a 38-26 record, including a league-leading 13-3 mark this season. He has an opportunity to add some emphatic punctuation to his success with Sunday’s NFC championship game against arch-rival Jim Harbaugh and the San Francisco 49ers.

Two articles published Thursday highlight some of the ways that Carroll brought success to the Pacific Northwest. The first, by Grantland’s Chris B. Brown, focuses on the development of Carroll’s defensive schemes throughout his career, including his failed stops in New York and New England:

Being a coach means eventually getting fired, and making a career out of coaching at all is an accomplishment. Carroll, however, has done something especially rare, pushing through wrenching public failure to succeed beyond all expectations. A coach can’t do that without learning from past mistakes, and Carroll has certainly changed for the better.

Brown focuses on the nuts and bolts of Carroll’s defense, discussing gap techniques and coverage schemes, but Brown argues that the biggest ingredient of Carroll’s success is his ability to match a defense’s specific roles with specific players:

The Carroll who coached the Jets and Patriots wouldn’t have been able to build and maintain the kind of team he now has in Seattle. He had the schemes, but he hadn’t yet mastered their application. Carroll has evolved over time by turning earlier failures into lessons.

In abrupt fashion, the competitive and challenging — but relentlessly upbeat — atmosphere cultivated by Carroll in the wake of his wildly successful decade at USC has become a major drawing point, helping the team attract players who in the past might have scoffed at coming to Seattle.

That atmosphere, Silver points out, has been a major key in convincing free-agents to sign with the Seahawks. And for someone like Michael Bennett, the defensive end who led the team in sacks after signing a one-year deal last offseason, that atmosphere might be key in convincing him to stay in Seattle.

“People want to come here and play for Pete,” Silver quoted Bennett saying after Sunday’s win over the Saints. “He just lets you be yourself. And we’re only gonna get better, too.”